Call for end to 'cancer treatment delay'

Cancer patients are waiting more than two years for vital treatments because of unacceptable delays in the approval process, campaigners have claimed.

According to charity CancerBACUP, 23 licensed cancer treatments are currently being denied to patients because of unnecessary delays in their NHS appraisal.

One treatment, Rituximab for Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, is subject to a three-year delay. Cetuximab, for advanced colorectal cancer, is subject to a delay of two and a half years and many others are not being made available for at least two years.

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For many cancer patients this delay means treatments will not be made available in time to help them and the charity is calling for radical reforms to the system.

This includes the fast-tracking of crucial drugs and cutting down the appraisal and referral processes by which drugs become available on the NHS.

Currently, once they have been licensed and put forward by the Department of Health, it is up to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to recommend drugs for NHS use, a process that takes at least a year from start to finish.

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"We have to improve and speed up the way new cancer treatments are monitored and assessed and fast-track the ones with the most impact," said CancerBACUP chief executive Joanne Rule.

"In the interim, its desperately urgent that the Department of Health issues a new health service circular so that doctors are clear that they can use any licensed drug if it will really help patients with cancer.

"Reform of the current system is a life and death issue for cancer patients."

Responding to the research, Nice chief executive Andrew Dillon said that the issue will be discussed at the institute's board meeting tomorrow, where proposals to "minimise the time gap between licensing and publication" will be considered.

"We recognise how important it is for the NHS and for patients to have timely advice on the use of new medicines, particularly for life threatening conditions such as cancer," he said.

"The timing of Nice guidance on new drugs depends on three things: first, the date the topic is referred to us by the Department of Health, second, when a license is granted and third, the length of the Nice appraisal process."

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